I’ve been on the other sidelines at Auburn, playing this type of game, and you get a little uncomfortable. -- Akron coach Terry Bowden

ANN ARBOR -- Akron football coach Terry Bowden appeared on the brink of tears shortly after his team's near-upset of Michigan on Saturday. Addressing the media after Michigan's 28-24 win, he went outside of realm of coach-speak and admitted nearly winning the game was a moral victory.

But the loss was just as much of a moral defeat.

"I’m sick for my players for how hard they played and how well they played," Bowden said. "Not to come away with a ‘W’, a victory to stamp at the end of what I consider a great football game that they played.

"I’ve been fortunate in my life time to be part of some big wins, and that would have been the biggest."

Bowden said he and his players watched the television broadcast of Michigan's win over Notre Dame on the bus ride up to Michigan. Normally coaches show their players the "coaches tape" because schemes and game plans are easier to decipher from the aerial vantage point, and there's less noise and extra hoopla than on a television broadcast.

But that extra stuff on the TV broadcast -- the emotion of the fans, the sounds of the stadium -- was exactly what Bowden wanted his team to see.

"You just kept saying to yourself as a coach -- an old coach, which I think I’m getting to be -- they can’t get that type of emotion again. Not this quick. So I was crossing my fingers, and I think a little bit that was the case," Bowden said. "I’ve been there, in that situation and that’s awful hard to get a team ready to go with a game like this, so I know what that’s like."

Though his team only trailed 7-3 at halftime, Bowden said it wasn't until the second half that he actually thought the Zips had a chance to win. It would have been Akron's first road-win in 27 games and the first home loss for Michigan since Brady Hoke became coach in 2011.

After stopping Michigan on the opening drive of the half, Akron drove 75 yards in eight plays and went ahead 10-7 with a 28-yard touchdown pass from Kyle Pohl to Zach D'Orazio.

"Sometimes it’ll be a first half and the other team goes in the locker room and they get yelled at, and chewed out, and they come out and pound you, you know. And that happens when somebody’s a bit more talented," Bowden said. "You had to come back and score that first (drive) of the second half to go ahead to really convince me that this was going to be a ball game."

Bowden said he figured the Michigan sideline was getting tense at that point.

"I’ve been on the other sidelines at Auburn, playing this type of game, and you get a little uncomfortable," he recalled.

Pohl said he and his teammates started to believe even before taking the lead.

"With how our defense was playing, even in the first half, I knew we could beat them," Pohl said.

But in the end, Akron came up one play short of a monumental upset, which would have been arguably bigger than Appalachian State in 2007 or Toledo in 2008. Appalachian State was an FCS powerhouse and the Michigan team that lost to Toledo won only three games itself.

Akron is a team with one win each of the past three years and Michigan is ranked eleventh in the country with Big Ten championship aspirations.

"They had the chance to play a game of a lifetime and they played the game of a lifetime and I’m sure down the road in their lives they will look back and cherish that one more than the misery they’re in right now," Bowden said.

That may be, but for now the misery was more apparent than the pride, at least in the case of Pohl.

"We had what we wanted," Pohl said of the final play, choking up as he replayed it in his head. "Maybe just a half second more I can squeeze it and make a better throw…that’s tough…that’s a tough one."